Are You Marriage Material?

Your personality

Studies suggest that approximately 25% of divorces are the result of personality differences between partners (Source: Psychology Today). Neuroticism is particularly deadly for a marriage: neurotic individuals tend to harbor feelings of anger and hostility, feel frequently self-conscious and irritable and may be prone to depression and anxiety (Source: Psychology Today). If that sounds like you, consider what impact this personality trait has had on your previous relationships, then try figure out some alternative ways to deal with stress and emotional difficulties in order to improve the quality of your next one.

Made for marriage: You have a reasonably easygoing personality, meaning that you tend to look on the bright side and you don’t sweat the small stuff.

The attitudes you bring to your relationship play a role in determining whether it will grow stronger or eventually fall apart. About 80% of divorced men note that their marriage ended because they lost a sense of closeness with their partners (Source: The Divorce Mediation Project), so try to develop stress management skills when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

Your attitudes toward relationships

Maintaining a strong bond between yourself and your partner will require some effort if you want your marriage to be successful. Moreover, research shows that when a man is not willing to share power with his wife, there is an 81% chance that his marriage will fail (Source: John Gottman, 1999). This statistic makes sense — after all, maintaining a long-term relationship requires compromise, so if you can’t handle not having everything your way, your marriage will not progress smoothly. Compromise includes everything from family decisions to finances, in-laws and even domestic chores. According to sociologist Ann Oakley, 87% of couples do not share housework and men tend to overestimate the amount they do. Women, however, find men who are willing to do housework extremely sexy, so if you think of compromise as a way to boost your sex life rather than a loss of power, you’re high-quality marriage material.

Made for marriage: You understand that a relationship is a work in progress. Whether you’ve been together for a year or for 20, you know that the trick to fueling the fire of your relationship is to work on compromising and ensuring that you and your partner continue to engage in mutually enjoyable activities that make you feel close.

marriage material

Hopefully, this breakdown has helped you take stock of a few things so that you now have a better idea of whether or not you’re marriage material. Of course, it’s important to remember that there are exceptions to every rule, so you and your future wife may beat the odds no matter how many numbers are against you. However, rather than blindly hoping that will be the case, it’s always a good idea (no matter where you fall in terms of statistics) to be honest about any trouble spots suggested by your profile. Dealing with those issues now will only improve the quality of your relationships, whether or not you choose to say “I do.”